A Gift

What Calls Us

In winter, it is what calls us
from seclusion, through endless snow
to the end of a long driveway
where, we hope, it waits—
this letter, this package, this
singing of wind around an opened door.

- Ted Kooser

I love this poem. I need this poem. It brings me back to a time when I was small. When I was symptom-free. During this time, the cuddly heat of being inside alone was pure enchantment. I long for that magic. Now seclusion is different. Seclusion breeds fear, anxiety, and anger. My image of isolation is of fetid clutter and my own numb, useless limbs. A pathetic body that abandons the struggling and raging mind. The mind wrestling against the chokehold it has on itself.

Why pick this poem? What quirk of nature would motivate me to readily submit to a blow? My answer is simple. The poem’s ‘meat’ speaks of the struggle to emerge and rejoin the world. This strengthens me. It is literally ‘what calls’ me out of my hovel. My trip will be long. The wind will push me back. Cold fingers will inch between the buttons of my coat. My ears will burn and redden. Still, I am summoned. I must take one step, a single step. I answer with movement, just an inch. Movement starts a small tear and soon a breach in depression’s searing whiteness.